Hmm. The key phrase in the forum title is 'Rumour'. It is not necessary to deal only with established facts in a thread such as this. Not saying that there's anything to this story, just echoing lomapaseos point.
Hmm. The key phrase in the forum title is 'Rumour'. It is not necessary to deal only with established facts in a thread such as this. Not saying that there's anything to this story, just echoing lomapaseos point.
a bit more expansion on my part
I do come here to catch the latest published rumours as well as the vetting afterwards, preferring not to wait for the final report to play catch-up.
However, on the other side, I don't much care to be bombarded with local PPRuNe theories all the way to conclusions to the point where the unvetted stuff on here creates its own rumour in the news.
just my .02$, I don't have an opinion on how to run this forum
One curiosity for me that hasn't been discussed is that 20 mins into the flight would mean they were well enroute (assuming the OP meant 20mins from t/o) and with the compromise to safety being speculated why they didn't go to East Midlands or Manchester - would that not have been a quicker way to get on the ground than returning to LHR? This suggests to me that whilst the crew were concerned it wasn't a critical/'Mayday' incident....
To be honest, from that sort of position it would probably take 20 minutes to land at any of the airports that you mention, due to the time required to prepare for the approach and physically fly it. Going back to LHR may not have been quicker but as they had just departed from there (and were therefore familiar with the conditions etc) as well as obviously being familiar with LHR approaches/Missed Approach Procedures, then as a "known" quantity it's a safer bet overall.
We had smoke fumes through out our 757 over the Florida Keys one day going to Central America. Our closest airport was Navy Key West military base. Landing there made no sense and we did not consider it because descending required distance so we returned to MIA. A few minutes extra to land at a familiar airport is a lot safer than dumping into an unfamiliar airport. The other problem is if you land at the Military base everybody needs to bus back to Miami to start over. We changed gates and were gone again in one hour.
German BFU finds engine oil toxins in pilot's blood
The BFU (German equivalent of the AAIB) is not letting this one drop. Air Berlin has had two reportable fume incidents in a couple of months, one in an A330 and the other in a 737-700.
Pilots very occasionally have to function under great stress. If a pilot is the sort of person to panic then they would not have ever passed through the many hoops of training nor be able to cope with the job in general.
I have been under great stress, I have seen others under great stress what I have never heard is a pilot sounding panicky.
batboy1970, your original post failed to get the phrase used correct, you misinterpreted the fact that a CC member carried an oxygen bottle and you set so many hares running that the story has even made it into the German newspapers.
On behalf of all the pilots in the world thank you for the disservice.
For those occasions when the 'right-stuff' fully resplendent with 20:20 hindsight is lacking, there will always be a heavy dose of arrogance under both epaulets to lean upon!
I have never seen a pilot stressed in an airliner other than normal problems with ATC when you need them but they don't respond because they are occupied with something and you need something now. You are only stressed because you have to deviate from your clearance and no one will talk to you.
My retirement flight I was stressed because we were not cleared for the approach on a short runway and I was way above the glideslope before they finally did and high dived it to one of my worst landings with all my friends on board. The frequency was jammed and they forgot us. I wish I had just gone around until I could have had a normal approach. We had a great steak and lobster dinner for all that night however.
Do I get the impression that the sceptics have been silenced by what the BFU has revealed (see post 109 on this thread)? It's all gone very quiet.
My impression is that "the sceptics" were not skeptical--I'll revert to my American spelling--about the cause of this event, whatever it was or wasn't, they were skeptical about the OP's SLF description of the event as verging on panic and fear. I remain skeptical about that.
My impression is that "the sceptics" were not skeptical--I'll revert to my American spelling--about the cause of this event, whatever it was or wasn't, they were skeptical about the OP's SLF description of the event as verging on panic and fear. I remain skeptical about that.
Understandable that confusion when different incidents are merged into one specific incident titled thread.
Indeed, to sort this out one has to await the reports from the two different investigating agencies to even draw comparisons.
IMO these incidents need sorting out and assessed for corrective actions.
Following the copilot's collapse with nausea from oil fumes in the cockpit air on an Air Berlin flight from Milan Malpensa to Dusseldorf in November, German accident investigator BFU has taken the unprecedented step of sending a blood sample from the copilot for analysis to a specialist scientific organisation.
From previous experience the BFU knew what it might find in the copilot's blood: tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate (TOCP), a chemical constituent of the anti-wear additives in aircraft engine oil. This neurotoxic organophosphate has, on numerous documented occasions worldwide, got into the engine bleed air fed to the cockpit and cabin for air conditioning and pressurisation.
So the BFU arranged for the blood sample - taken from the copilot at a Dusseldorf hospital immediately after the flight - to be sent to the University of Nebraska for analysis. The tests proved positive, the BFU has reported. There was indeed TOCP in the copilot's blood, and what is more it had bonded with one of the natural enzymes in the copilot's body that regulates muscular and cognitive neural activity.
This is what TOCP does. The neurotoxicity of organophosphates is a known and understood phenomenon.
The BFU has said it is not going to put this subject down*. It is going to investigate the medical consequences of TOCP poisoning for pilots. Actually this is well known, but the BFU wants its own proof.
This is just what the airlines and aircraft manufacturers have been dreading: a government agency that is not prepared to look the other way any longer, like all the others have done so far.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority, for example, has had to face several cases of the inflight incapacitation of airline pilots.
Its reaction? Heath and Safety issues in an aircraft cabin are not its job [actually that's a wilful misinterpretation of its duties], and besides which, it was the pilots' fault for not getting their oxygen masks on fast enough.
How refreshing to see an agency like the BFU with the courage to face up to an issue as controversial as this.
It may lead to the industry finally having to do something about a problem which has been well known and understood for fifty years, and which has robbed thousands of flightcrew and cabin crew of their health and livelihoods.
Watch now as those with interests at stake try to silence the BFU.
Watch the conspiracy theories about the blood samples being rolled out.
Watch for the denigration of the copilot as a total wimp because the captain was not affected to the same degree.
Even Boeing, which has eliminated the risk of organophosphate contamination from its 787 series by generating cabin air supplies from sources independent of the engines and auxiliary power units, cannot celebrate, because all its other types are conventional.
The Air Berlin flight in this case was a Boeing 737-700 operated for the airline by Germania, but in October last year an Air Berlin Airbus A330 had just such an event, and the BFU is looking into that, too.
No pressurised types that draw bleed air from the engines or APU are immune. That means all of them except the 787.
CP many thanks, i stopped even commenting when it all got a bit silly. I have actually been contacted by the airline who have informed me of their initial findings. I wont go public on here but when it is announced it will cause something of a stir i have no doubt. The main thing i got from my corresponce was firstly i was bang on the money, secondly there were no mechanical or technical faults.......not with the plane anyway !!!!!!
I have actually been contacted by the airline who have informed me of their initial findings. I wont go public on here but when it is announced it will cause something of a stir i have no doubt. The main thing i got from my corresponce was firstly i was bang on the money, secondly there were no mechanical or technical faults.......not with the plane anyway !!!!!!
You start by posting your version of what happened setting all manner of hares running.
Now the airline have given you the full story so far but you aren't going to post it.
I am impressed you were 'bang on the money'. So your first post was accurate?
